This one day online conference will examine next steps for children’s online safety in the UK.

It will bring together stakeholders with policymakers to examine priorities for strengthening protections for children online - including the role of schools. The agenda looks at the regulation of social media use, the role of platforms and regulators in addressing harmful content, and the interaction of practice in the school environment with wider developments in online safety policy and safeguarding practice. We also expect discussion on the Government’s consultation on establishing a Child Protection Authority in England.

It comes as the Government consults on children’s digital wellbeing as part of its wider approach to child protection and online harms, including proposals - advanced through ministerial statements and the consultation itself - to restrict social media use for under-16 year-olds. We expect discussion on practicalities related to recent Department for Education guidance on mobile phone use in schools - setting out an expectation of a phone-free school day - reflecting concerns about exposure to harmful content, distraction, and wellbeing, and its relationship with wider safeguarding responsibilities.

With Ofcom taking forward implementation of the Online Safety Act 2023, discussion will consider how these developments interact, the pace and sequencing of implementation, and what effective oversight looks like in practice as new requirements come into force. As part of this, we expect discussion to reflect Ofcom’s call for evidence on content harmful to children, aimed at informing codes of practice, supervision, and early enforcement priorities.